Hi from the Varneys in Northland

I used to buy the lsb mag but this is way cheaper!!!![] We bought 5 acres near Kerikeri and built a totalspan 'house' on it. We have a blended family which will be 8 kids when next baby (and last I might add) comes in June. Husband is an ex Aucklander (6 years ago) and has adapted very well to country life (and hates city like I do). I have always lived in the wop wops and are keen to carry on living as self sufficiently as we can. So far we have 7 trusty brown shavers (which the kids have named but I call them chook) and one Arab pony on lease. 9 year old daughter takes him to pony club. We are grazing the neighbours pony too at the moment. We have a friesian X jersey house cow due to calf in July which is grazing else where but we will bring back here soon. Planning to share her with the calf and cut back on having to buy dairy products. Once calf is weaned we would like to get a weaner pig or two. Kids also want a dog and cat. Need advice on a good cheap family breed.
Lifestyle blocking is a good lesson in patience - there are so many things to do but it seems like our days are filled with just 'living'.:cool:

Hi and welcome, do you mean dog breed bestess dogs are happy friendly ones, we have had all kinda mixes and all good as for cheap there are always free ones being offered to us so look around for one then go meet and see if you like each other:)

It sounds a bit like you need to answer the advertisement that says "Dog for sale, eats anything, loves children"

Hi again from a fellow Northlander

thevarneys;304171 wrote: ...Kids also want a dog and cat. Need advice on a good cheap family breed. ...

LongRidge;304183 wrote: It sounds a bit like you need to answer the advertisement that says "Dog for sale, eats anything, loves children"

Hello Varneys, from further north. Have you guys ever had a dog before? If you decide to go ahead, do consider the level of control you must exercise over it, especially considering the likely proximity of Kiwi anywhere around Kerikeri! "Dog ... eats anything ..." gives me horrors!
Dogs also regularly eat people's own chooks, whatever their names might be.

Housecow milking is fantastic! We've a fridge filling up with Cottage, Mozzarella and Ricotta cheeses right now, and the fresh milk is absolutely lovely.

Good luck.

best family dog you can get would be a lab in my opinion. We have a 50kg+ chocolate lab who is aboslutely brilliant with our kids (2yrs and 5 mths) - he is so caring with them it's great. He also puts up with an inordinate amount of abuse from them with no complaint whatsoever.
Added to this he's completely uninterested in chasing anything on our block so no Kiwi issues from ours (but obviously they are hunting / retrieving dogs naturally so ours I think is the exception!).

oh, one last thing, I found this website before finding the magazine, but have taken a subscription out since getting on the website - and am very happy with it! Have to defend the print media!